FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT BAILOUT PLAN - PAGE 3

The future of Chicago's public schools is the key to the General Assembly's fall session, which begins Tuesday. Now that the Chicago Board of Education and the Chicago Teachers Union have reached a tentative two-year contract agreement, lawmakers are scheduled to consider a bailout plan for the deficit-plagued schools. If they do not meet an imminent judicial deadline to provide some form of relief, the schools may shut down. Beyond that, nothing is certain. Without a solution to the schools crisis, Mayor Richard Daley's plan for floating casinos will remain dry-docked.

March 18 (Reuters) - Some U.S. stocks on the move on Monday: (For more market insights, including options activity, click on ; for The Day Ahead newsletter http://link.reuters.com/mex49s; for the Morning News Call newsletter, http://link.reuters.com/faq23t) WALL ST FALLS AS BANKS SLIDE ON EUROPEAN WORRIES U.S. stocks fell on Monday as a divisive bailout plan for Cyprus knocked bank stocks lower on the view that the plan's tax on bank deposits could spread and threaten stability in the euro zone.

Moving past Monday's rejection of a $700 billion rescue plan for U.S. credit markets means confronting several truths -- some of them uncomfortable for Americans of various political stripes: The Bush administration has failed to convince millions of Americans that this plan is what it is: relief not so much for Wall Street as for ordinary employers and households nationwide that rely on credit to conduct our everyday business. That's most of us. Maybe the lame-duck administration or partisan congressional leaders didn't have the credibility to sell such an expensive rescue; maybe citizens are too alienated from Washington to pay attention.

Will County prepared Tuesday for the second straight year to borrow to pay its bills amid signs of an ever-deepening fiscal crisis. The move to seek a 10-month loan of $8.5 million came as a variety of officials disclosed shortfalls and warned of future budget deficits. County Executive Charles Adelman said he is considering enlisting the help of outside experts to craft a bailout plan. Adelman's comments came after Ron Svara, a member of the County Board's Budget and Revenue Committee, produced financial projections Tuesday showing the county with a $2 million deficit within two years.

Representatives of the Bensenville Park District, Bensenville Community Library and Fenton High School District 100 agree that it would be nice to give School District 2 a $2.2 million grant to preserve academic programs without having to sell four elementary schools. But they aren't sure they can spare the cash--or whether bailing out financially strapped Bensenville Elementary School District 2 justifies sacrificing their own programs. "I don't even know if it's legal to do this," Susan Janowiak, president of the Park Board, said Thursday.

By Jim Johnston, policy adviser to The Heartland Institute | September 29, 2008

To summarize the current financial crisis: 1. A lot of mortgages at variable interest rates were given to borrowers who were not qualified. 2. The housing bubble was created by the Federal Reserve by holding down interest rates below the natural level. 3. Homeowners with existing mortgages were encouraged to borrow on a tax-deductible basis to purchase consumer durables such as autos, washers, dryers and dishwashers. 4. Mortgages were consolidated into securities, and the financial institutions took out insurance in the form of credit derivative swaps.

A group representing the nation's life insurance guaranty funds said the required number of members have approved a $1.9 billion bailout plan for policyholders of failed Executive Life Insurance Co. that will ease the company's takeover by a French investor group. The National Organization of Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Associations plans to drop its own bid for Executive Life. An earlier guaranty group agreement collapsed last month after a California state court ruled that about $2 billion in Executive Life contracts used to back municipal bonds rank equally with conventional policies and annuity contracts.

Major industrial nations on Friday unveiled a plan to stop the global financial firestorm from wreaking even more havoc and prevent it from engulfing Latin America's biggest economy, Brazil. Trying to act before the crisis hits the United States' backyard, the Group of Seven said it had come up with a way of giving countries quick access to capital to fight off the effects of the world-wide financial turmoil. "Some of the ideas involved with contingency financing could possibly find application in Brazil, although that will of course depend on how the situation in Brazil progresses," Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers told a news briefing.

A plan disclosed in April to pump about $6 million of new equity into financially troubled Wurlitzer Co., De Kalb, collapsed Friday. Robert A. Dyer Jr., who headed an investment group that had agreed to acquire 51 percent of Wurlitzer, said he and Wurlitzer management were unable to reach agreement with the First National Bank of Chicago and other lenders to the company. Wurlitzer, a 130-year old company that is shifting from the musical organ business to making pianos and office furniture, said in April that it was in violation of its credit agreements and had exceeded its borrowing limits.

Democratic lawmakers Thursday criticized the Bush administration's loan plan for Amtrak as inadequate, while the railroad and Transportation Department continued to haggle over details of a tentative plan to keep the nation's passenger trains running. Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) called the loan offer "a Band-Aid," adding that the rail service is "hemorrhaging by the minute." The tentative agreement reached Wednesday night called for the government to lend Amtrak $100 million--enough to keep it operating until mid-August--and to ask Congress to intervene with either a loan or subsidy of up to $170 million so the railroad could remain open through the end of its fiscal year on Sept.